Hijacked
by Gothic Rain
Summary: Nyrtiri Jackson thought she had lost everything when her girlfriend split up with her but she would soon realize that she had so much left to live for when a car crash sent her life to an abrupt halt. The day she died was the day she lived, and now she seeks to find the answers to how she came to be, only to quickly realize she's not the only one to have cheated death. [F/F & M/M]
1. Chapter 1

**Hijacked**

_**Hey, everyone! For those who came here from my Phoenix account, welcome back! For those of you that are new, welcome! Here stands the now rewritten Hijacked story I started a while back, now actually planned with a plot to follow. Although this story is currently rated T, know that it will likely develop into an M story with time. Enjoy!**_

**Chapter 1**

The cool rain of Dallas, Texas reigned heavy against the windows of her monstrous truck contrasting terribly with the upbeat sound of trap radiating from her radio speakers. Nyrtiri took one glance at the sky through her rearview mirror and just knew there was going to be trouble. It was Six pm on a Friday and everyone was either heading home from work or going out for drinks and fun. Heavy traffic was inevitable but add a thunderstorm to it? She sighed and switched her radio to the weather report hoping in vain that she would miss the traffic before the storm fully set in.

Of course, there no such luck. Just another thing to make a bad day even worse. Nyrtiri took a glance over to the passenger seat to find the last of her boxes she took from there - her ex's - place since their abrupt breakup. She almost wished it was more dramatic than the sad case it was. There was no cheating, no slow let me downs, no sudden violence - just brutal heart-breaking decisions.

_"We can't keep doing this anymore. I can't." Amelia pleads, turning her normally breath-catching sapphire eyes at her, now a dark deep abyss. Nyrtiri froze, the car keys in her fingers still clicking against the rings from where she was about to set them down. A long day at work after an even longer exam in college and this was not what she expected to come home to. A warm bed? Empty maybe? Sure. But not this. _

_Never like this. _

_"Amelia-" the little words she tried to gasp out were stolen just like her breath when they first met but this time instead of feeling her heart come alive, she felt like it was dying. _

_"I'm sorry 'Tir, you know just as well as I this isn't working out anymore. You're never home and ever since your brother died-"_

_"Don't," her voice once shaky came back strong in a stern almost furious tone, dark brown eyes locking on blue that clearly told her to drop the conversation after she dared to speak of her late brother's name. Of how that damn fool got himself killed and dragged his family name through the mud because of it. _

_Amelia threw her hands up, making her point. "We can't talk anymore! I can't keep doing this anymore. Keep pretending things are like they were before," Nyrtiri flinched at her voice-crack, the raw emotion pouring out of her girlfriend that made her chest feel like it had been gauged open. _

_"Just go- I can't talk to you like this right now."_

_She took a step forward, keys heavy in her hand. "Amelia, wait-"_

_"Just go!" Nyrtiri stumbled back at the anguished roar, tears pooling in her eyes without her consent. She stood there as her girlfriend dropped to her knees, tears streaming unforgivably down her cheeks as fast as her heart was screaming at her. She wanted nothing more than to drop down to the floor beside her and gather her up in her arms to hold her tight. To tell her they'd work things out. _

_But she didn't. Instead, she took a step back towards the door, swallowed thickly and thus tasting the saltiness of her restrained tears. Maybe she knew Amelia was right: They weren't good for each other anymore. Maybe she was just a coward. Either way, Nyrtiri did as asked and left, the door shutting softly behind her._

Two weeks later and with anger washed away by the rain of constant storms Nyrtiri found herself back at the place that was once their home to pack and pick up her things. Her hands trembled against the steering wheel as she felt her heart torn for what she had done. Her mistakes were breaking her inside. A clap of thunder rang out above her, jolting her from her memories and her eyes focused on the cars driving ahead of her now. Shaking her head she pursued all while her heart felt heavy over a different matter now.

"This rain ain't letting up," she muttered to herself, noting how her windshield wipers struggled in vain to keep up with the sudden downpour. Gravel kicked up against her car as a semi-truck pulled up in front of her and Nyr smirked at the vague nostalgia. Her mother would always curse like a sailor and slam her hand on the horn whenever a semi-truck so much as came within ten feet of her escalade. Her truck was a mild size comparison to the car her mother once drove but she liked to think she'd made her mother proud at the sight of her vehicle.

In hindsight, maybe black wasn't the smartest of ideas. The rain stains would stand out vibrantly once this was all over and horn blowing loudly over the rain set a wave of slight uneasiness through her. Maybe next time she would take the long way home rather than take the interstate.

Nyr let out a weak exhale as the semi moved further ahead and the insistent honking finally stopped. Really? What was that helping? Her turn-off came as a welcome relief the moment the sign became visible and she tried to relax her white-knuckled grip as she turned right to merge into the lane - her thoughts already going back to her ex-girlfriend as she drove on auto-pilot.

An ear-ringing horn showed that to be a mistake for what she had thought she was alone with the veil of rain obscuring her ranged vision was actually another semi-truck. She quickly moved out of its way and let out a breath the moment the (angry) truck driver pulled up beside her. Nyrtiri took a steadying breath and blinked.

Tires squealed, her head snapped to the left startled to see the truck tilting to the side, and automatically her hands twist the steering wheel hard to bank right while her lungs seized in panic. Her heart beating rapidly in her chest before stopping all-together as her truck begun to tilt as well.

She barely had time to close her eyes.

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A burnt-chemical smell permitted the air and Nyr opened her eyes expecting to find herself in her physics classroom only to be met with blurry walls and fading lights. She tried to sit up only to groan - her voice sounding disjointed and off.

"What happened?" She gasped, trying to feel her limbs. Her fingers and toes twitched but when she tried to twist her body to see where she was she felt faint at the sudden spike of white-hot pain. To her shame, she even had to bite back a scream. Panting, she blinked hard to try and fix the blurs obscuring her vision.

Another sound broke free past her lips without her permission and just as she tried to silence herself she went still. A piercing sound rang in her ear; silence? She tried to listen closely but all she heard was her heavy exhales to take in oxygen and the cringing sound of metal on metal.

Wait. Nyr closed her eyes. Nausea swept through her and she could do nothing but vomit - capable of only turning her neck as she spilled the mess. Her stomach felt uneasy and as she took in expanded her lungs with a deep breath after she felt all sorts of wrong going on.

"Fuck!" Described her situation adequately. Rain pelted on the pavement beside her. Her eyes followed the sound to find broken shards of glass and the ends of her hair - now wet and dripping.

She blinked again and then everything came rushing back. The traffic reports, the semi, the horns - oh shit. Shit. Shit! She looked around again, realizing she was upside down and practically nailed to her seat with how tight her safety belt felt and her airbags seemed to have failed to inflate.

A tickle in her throat caused her to cough and she felt a syrupy substance splash over her lips to drip. She let her tongue dart out over her grazed teeth to taste the coppery blood. Feeling another wave of nausea go through her she went to tilt her head but only managed to make herself dizzier. She groaned as a sledgehammer suddenly blew her brains out. Her head was killing her.

She closed her eyes.

The next time she blinked she felt like rocks were burrowed in her skin, aching and forging cracks in her bones all the while. She gulped in stale air, feeling her lungs more intimately than she ever had before as she greedily drank in the gasoline-tasting air. Spots danced in the corners of her vision she tried hard to ignore even though it only made her head feel fuzzy inside. Her ears were still ringing and she was still stuck upside down, her seat-belt the only thing keeping her from landing in the puddle of her own vomit.

She waited, hoping that someone would find her.

For what felt like hours drifting in and out of consciousness Nyr tried focusing on the rain pelting the pavement beside her as the agony in her body was the only thing keeping her awake for longer than a minute. It was poetic almost. The way the rain and thunderstorms had always made her feel at ease was now her only company as she lay helplessly inside her barreled over a truck.

Nyrtiri couldn't feel anything besides the feeling of the wind whipping against her cheeks and her heartbeat in her ears, the rain rushing like a flood outside the broken window. Each breath she took made her lungs feel heavier and heavier. Her chest had begun to noticeably ache. She tried not to think about what that meant. The weather was so cold as it nipped at her skin where she was abandoned and vulnerable. It seeped into her bones and she became all too aware of how soaked her sweatshirt was by rainwater now.

Everything felt clear and yet disoriented. Every time she tried to concentrate the sledgehammer felt like it was pounding against her skull and every time she tried to move she felt like the hammer would've been merciful. A sob choked in her throat as tears readily began to fall from her eyes, moving upwards into her hairline from the strange angle she was in.

The sound of the storm was deafening but Nyr continued to hope that ambulance sirens were ringing despite it all. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know what was going to happen to her. But more than anything... all she could think about was just how badly... at this moment she wanted to be home in bed with her ex. To hold her in her arms as they slept the night away. To feel Amelia's hair tickle against her face and her warm breaths against her neck. Her lips soft against her own.

To look in her beautiful sapphire, viridian, and zaffre blue eyes and find her home there with her. It hurt thinking about how she no longer had that anymore. Amelia didn't want her anymore. She lost her home.

She cried freely now, feeling the tears fall uncomfortably into her hairline. The substance almost cooling the burning pain in her head. She coughed as she tried to take in another greedy lung-filled air only to choke on it. Her chin felt heavier from where something darker than spit fell and she was sure it was blood. She hoped it was from biting her tongue and nothing internal. Even with a broken heart, Nyr didn't want her heart to literally break.

Her chest hurt and this time it felt more physical than emotional. It was becoming harder to breathe. Broken ribs? The blurs were returning with a vengeance, dark spots taunting her as she felt tempted to sleep. To just close her eyes and wait till the pain went away.

No.

She didn't want it to end. _Where_ was the ambulance?

Her hands twitched reminding her where she was, how helpless she was that she couldn't even help herself. Her hands were stiff from the cold, the rain, and maybe the blood loss too. Nyrtiri blinked, wondering what she was thinking of before.

How the heaviness in her heart seemed to lighten ever so slightly.

Fuck.

Nyrtiri Jackson never thought about how she would die. The very thought was incomprehensible to her. Everything she was, everything she was working to be - gone in an instant by a fate that can only be called death? She couldn't bear the thought of losing the world she lived in. How vibrant and full of life and color it was. The people, although cold at times, were so unique and personal she wanted a hundred years to see the world as it were - and maybe more. To see its art, the people's music, the contrasting culture - all of it. To live and see how the next generations carved out the future.

Nyr wanted to live and see as much of the world as she could before she died.

She just wanted...

Nyrtiri closed her eyes feeling like her tears were suffocating her. Drowning her.

...To live.

And as the rain continued to fall from the dark clouds above, her heart went silent within the signaling thunder of the storm.

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* * *

Nytiri woke up feeling like she was dying. Everything was blurry; her eyes burning in tears pushing against her eyes. An icy chill surrounded her – seeping into her clothes and seeping into her wounds unforgivably. A fire resided in her lungs that made her nearly scream had she not felt so confused. She had never felt so heavy before: like gravity itself was a hand holding her down. Worst of all? She couldn't breathe. No breath seemed to exist around her and she felt strangely weightless or disoriented. Like nothing lay against her. No ground, no grass - nothing.

She tried to move her arms but felt weak. They barely moved an inch. Her lungs seized reminding her all too well she couldn't breathe. The fuzziness in her head that muffled her grew stronger but Nyrtiri did not want to close her eyes and sleep again. If she did what worse thing would she wake up to next? She stomps her feet and feels herself fly upward like a half-empty bottle thrown into a pond only to stubbornly resurface. The black spots grew and even disoriented she knew that she wasn't dying but was seconds away from death. She pushed her protesting limbs more strongly than she felt she ever had. Enough to feel like her ligaments were tearing in her joints.

Nevertheless, she persisted. Darkness has shown in overhead but a sphere of invading light hit Nyrtiri like a ton of bricks... not unlike the semi-truck that smashed into her truck actually. She wasn't crying and she wasn't trapped under her truck anymore. Instead, somehow, in some way that made her heart seize unhelpfully in her chest, she was underwater. And by the way, her instincts fought against her desire to breathe, she wondered why she fought to hold her breath when what was the harm if not breathing was already killing her? She tried to hold on, more conscious than she had before, the necessity to survive overpowering any pain or lingering helplessness in her.

Nyrtiri fought against the burdening water around her and felt thankful she was not in the ocean where the waves were always relentless against intruders. Ignoring any other distracting thoughts she focused on the task at hand and kept pushing her arms up and down like she was lifting weights. No matter how much her body felt heavier and heavier with each push she continued and sought out the white light brushing the surface of the water like an open door to salvation.

She thought of everything she had overcome with certainty and refused - spat at the threshold of the gods - to be put down here. But as much as she consciously fought to hold her breath she felt a desire to give in to the water that near overpowered her efforts to survive. She felt like she had been fighting the water for hours yet she knew it had hardly been more than a few seconds.

Nyrtiri did her best not to panic but such a feeling was not controlled and she began to feel unable to determine whether she was holding her breath anymore. She screamed at herself mentally that she was so close but suddenly it wasn't enough and she let herself down when her larynx clapped shut the moment her mouth opened to breathe and caused freezing water to push her down into her lungs.

Her body seized and her arms and legs once furiously moving were now solidified, like a statue, turned into the weight of stone. Where she once felt weightless and burdened she now felt squeezed and anchored, like her skin itself was replaced with marble. The fuzziness faded with the rush of water forced into her lungs and now she was involuntary wide awake.

The calm and determination vanished as soon as they arrived and was replaced with desperation like she had never felt before as she kept gasping for air even as she was sinking lower and lower.

All the stories she had heard about drowning in all the books she had read or the fun near-death stories told around a campfire filled with horror stories were just that - stories. There was nothing peaceful about sinking into the pit of darkness that was wherever the hell she was - and the most brutal thing wasn't that she knew she was dead: instead it was the fact that she couldn't move even if she wanted to. She hadn't given up. This wasn't a choice she made to stop lifting the weight. It wasn't something sustained over time. It just happened as sudden as she woke up-

Was this actually Hell? What for? Being gay or for having the human condition? Was it for being a selective atheist? She wanted answers, dammit! Was she dead, dying, or hellishly reliving death for all eternity? Where was she? Why was she here?

She wanted to cry but the water stole that from her too. She wanted to breathe but her lungs refused to take in water. The ability she once had to control her breathing was now stolen from her like everything else and she felt trapped in the feeling of dying and just wanted it to be over without the pain.

There was no hope in her that she was going to be saved and no faith that she would be found. She wanted to scream and cry out for the helplessness in her situation... she wanted to feel numb to the pain coursing through her. She wanted to close her eyes for a sense of closure but was capable of none of it.

Nothing made sense anymore. The plot of her life now felt meaningless; Her ambitions uncompleted; Her existence unfulfilled. She wished she had lived more than she had survived: caring so much about little things she had failed at that she had lost grip on her own life. So afraid that someone would snatch her time from her when now it had been taken by her own inaction.

Nyrtiri never thought about how she could have died before because she knew how easy it was to fall into the fanatical idea of it. To escape the relentless current of passing time and constant pain to overcome life's limitless struggles. The thought of dying made her feel cheap like she was just another body to fall into a politician's statistic. Another person to mourn while the world moved on without so much a second glance to her tragic loss of life by terrible timing and circumstance.

All the things she had taken for granted like the ability to move or even have time to hesitate... all this time wasted on worrying over what the future would be and what place she would forge for herself.

Gone.

All this time she took for granted that life moved forward. But now her body felt adrift, the rower steering the boat lost, and now facing backward as she stared up at the light of the moon she could see where she's been, but not where she's going. That terrified her.

Time restarted as she felt everything freeze. Darkness reclaimed her vision like a persistent itch and she arrived at what was likely her final thought of how little the world she had experienced.

And an agony like she had never felt or never could truly define embraced her coldly reminding her of the life she had but never truly lived. But even where her body failed her she persisted mentally as though death itself was a sentient being in her presence.

She cursed it. She screamed at it. She told it to fuck off and let her have this final end to herself.

Nyrtiri defied it and hoped with every emotion in her heart, every instinct in her being, and every desire in her existence with vigor so strong it felt like that was drowning her instead that she would overcome this. The darkness in her vision went white.

She hoped that all the world could hear her screams of defiance.

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* * *

Her body was convulsing when Nyrtiri opened her eyes and her conscious thought slammed into her with the force of a freight train. Lava burned her lungs and she coughed thickly trying to get it out. Her stomach was equally aflame and nothing she did seemed to soothe it. Tears fell freely from her eyes as they moved in every direction available as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. She heaved and heaved, getting as much as the molten liquid out of her lungs and felt a traitorous feeling of alive now that she could move her body even if in reflex.

When she was done she gasped for air as though she had never tasted it before. It burned even more than the lava she had expelled from her body yet she couldn't stop breathing even if she wanted to. Everything still weighed like her blood had been replaced with sand yet the cold feeling of recycled air felt like it was worth a million bucks.

She squeezed her eyes to prevent the light from burning them as the rest of her felt but as soon as she had, she was hit with deep drowsiness she couldn't even begin to fight and felt her body relax before she could even attempt to try.

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The next time she opened her eyes the lights were dimmed and only the light of the moon from the window greeted her as some semblance of company. She felt drained, like the blood itself had bled out from her body.

She lifted a heavy yet movable hand and stared at it in something akin to disbelief and thankfulness. So she hadn't died after all.

But then, who rescued her from that pit of hell?

As it were, she would never be given an answer leaving her to her imagination in the week to pass. From the first moment the pretty nurse came in to check on her after waking, her world came to a crashing halt the moment those words left her mouth: "Ah, we're glad to see you awake, Mrs. Swan."

Nyrtiri blinked slowly at the woman feeling weary all of a sudden. "What?"

Perhaps expecting the question, the nurse wasn't even the slightest bit fazed by her somewhat snappish outburst. "You're lucky to be alive. Doctor Jorgenson will relay everything to you when he comes in. Do you remember what happened, dear?" Brushing off the endearment with slight irritation, she decided she would tell her about having the wrong identification after she answered. She was more worried about her medical chart than her mistaken identification at the moment.

Her head pounded as she tried to concentrate. Bringing up a hand to rub it, hoping to sooth how feverish the skin felt there she suddenly froze as her mind finally recognized something very, very wrong. Pale skin lay pasted to an arm that acted like it was her own. When she commanded her fingers to flex the foreign hand obeyed. When she brought her other hand to brush the skin she found that her callouses, scars, and sunspots were gone. All gone.

The feeling of ice gripped her heart in a vice and she thought back to how she came here. Rain pelted on the window near her hospital bed and her eyes wandered over to stare at the stained glass windows. Flashes went across her mind as the memory resurfaced. How she was driving to her friend's house as Amelia's breakup with her came crashing down. The traffic on the roads. The car collision. She blinked, feeling a tear slip down her eye but she didn't pay mind to it as she remembered hanging upside down, trapped in the seat of her truck alone in the downfall of the rain. She remembered the pain.

"Mrs. Swan?" A gentle voice tried to prod her from her thoughts but Nyr resisted, drowning herself in the memory.

And almost as though she was unaware of it she began to speak aloud. Reliving the memory. "I was on the road. I don't know how it started but a car flipped onto mine. I blacked out," she paused, remembering what it felt like to wake up in agony. Everything seemed so clear yet in a distant way like she has herself separated from it; an onlooker. Like it was a dream conjured by her own thoughts and subconsciousness. "When I opened my eyes again I couldn't breathe. I tried to swim, break the surface but I wasn't strong enough," admitting so made her feel weak but as she looked down at herself - past the color of her skin - she took note of the white bandages wrapped around her limbs that she could feel around her ribcage as well. "I couldn't hold my breath any longer and my body went against me or something. Next thing I knew I was sinking, unable to do anything... I thought for sure I was dead. How am I here?" She asked, looking up from her thick eyelashes, at last, to find the nurse giving her a sympathetic glance.

Before she could respond a man walked into the room with a quick knock on the door frame. He looked rather plain but the lines around his eyes were prominent and she found herself wondering what kind of impression the good doctor would make. "Isabella, it's good to see you're eyes open. Has Audrey told you how lucky you are to have survived?" He asked her, his voice kind and eyes empathetic. She was relieved, glad to neither be treated as an object to fix nor as a victim to pity.

"Might've mentioned it," Nyr replied, and then paused. "However, I am wondering something..?"

Doctor Jorgenson nodded to show he was listening and with more hesitance than she was comfortable with she spoke the heaviest question on her mind. "Why... why do you insist on calling me, Isabella Swan?"

Eyes widening in response to her question she felt dread settle in when the nurse's eyes turned, even more, pitying while the doctor looked not surprised but more... compassionate, maybe.

The man pulled up a chair near the door and sat down, waving the nurse away who left without disturbance despite the mood of the room. "You were in a car collision on the bridge near a lake, I'm afraid. Your vehicle was hit with enough force to send it over the railing and into the water. Someone on the road must've noticed your struggle because they managed to reach you in time... however, you weren't breathing and your heart had stopped."

At his words, I was hit with a sense of great caution but listened as he relayed what he knew happened to me.

"We don't know how long oxygen had been deprived of your body and honestly, memory loss and some minor injuries is really quite remarkable."

Nyrtiri, sensing the pause in the conversation cut in. "Memory loss?"

The doctor gave her an intense look before nodding. "Tell me, Mrs. What do you recall before the crash?"

Nyrtiri thought about it for a moment, wondering what to say as she stared at the pale unmarked flesh of her hands. Skin graft perhaps? Had she been in a coma or something?

"I... I was driving. Or at least I remember being driven. It was raining, wasn't it? I don't understand 'Doc. How am I in Phoenix?" She asked, really trying to grasp at something she knew. Something that was familiar. "A helicopter had to fly you here due to your location and the nearby hospitals not suitable for your situation... But somehow I think you mean something else?"

"I thought I was in New York. It was raining. So much rain," she said it seriously even as her breaths begin to come unsteady - the confusion she felt likely plastered all over her face. The doctor 'hmmed' and interlocked his fingers. "I imagine it's your memory trying to fill in the gaps. My diagnosis is that the oxygen deprivation caused some brain damage. Fortunately, our scans show that your hippocampus remains unharmed so you'll be able to retain new memories. What is missing we'll find out in time."

"I see," Nyrtiri said, keeping her opinion to herself about what a sick joke her life had become.

"Your guardian has been notified of what has happened but has not responded to any of our calls so far. We checked your records and found that you have a father, although your mother divorced him more than ten years ago. Does any of this sound familiar?" He asked her and she shook her head. "If your mother has not called us back by tonight we will be notifying your father. There has been no mention of any misconduct, but even if you don't remember him do you feel anything wrong about it?"

"Feel? Like a bad vibe?" She asked, bewildered. The doctor smiled, not seeming offended. "Sometimes the human mind dissociates ourselves of painful memories. Oxygen deprivation may have only erased the memories entirely, rather than blocking them. It is possible however that as a defensive system your mind still recognizes people as you can still talk and move around acting your age. Some people with brain damage are not so lucky and need rehab to speak properly again. You see?"

Nyrtiri nodded, glad for the thorough explanation.

Then she shook her head. "Sorry, I feel nothing," she paused, then continued. "Not nothing, actually. I feel like he's a stranger. I don't feel like I have a father or a mother... maybe a brother?" She asked, nearly cringing at the thought of him. The doctor shook his head and Nyr sighed, pressing her fingers into her head to stave off an impending headache with this news. To think: her an only child? No sibling drama? No one to trust to have her back and then feel betrayal when she gets stabbed with that misplaced trust?

Still. Silver-linings or not, this was a lot to take in. Especially while retaining the appearance that she wasn't too bothered by the _life-altering changes _around her.

"Your memory could be associating a friend with a brother. Did Audrey prod you about the crash?"

She nodded.

"Do you remember anyone with you during the crash? Do you remember the driver of the vehicle that hit you?" The question she expected but she narrowed her eyes him, picking up the hint. She swallowed, feeling dread for what she was about to ask. "There were casualties?"

"Two," the doctor replied sincerely with a mournful dip of his head. "The driver likely died from the blunt force of the collision. We identified that he was driving while intoxicated."

"And the second?" She asked, hesitant. He sighed, and Nyrtiri noted the compassion in his eyes. Compassion _for her._

"Adam Bell. Seventeen years old. He was the driver of the vehicle you were in. It is likely he died of blunt force trauma as the drivers' side was directly hit. His records show he lives in the same neighborhood as you. I think he was a friend and you have my severe condolences."

She breathed out slowly, her lungs aching from the effort but she ignored the feeling. It was sad but not something she wasn't used to. New York wasn't known as the safest place to drive (let alone live in) after all. Still, she wondered how she ended up here. How she had become this _white-skinned _Isabella Swan. "Does his family know?"

The doctor nodded. "You have been in a coma for five days and during that time, his body has been released to his family. That's all I know, I'm sorry." She shrugged, having no words to express what she was feeling. What she _should_ be feeling as the girl who lost a friend and not as Nyrtiri.

"Were my injuries severe?" She questioned, wondering what the pristine white bandages hid.

"You have severe bruising around your ribcage which will likely make breathing difficult for a week or so. From repeated acts of chest compression, you also have some bruising there but those should be gone in the next day or two. There are some minor lacerations across your arms and neck from the broken glass but nothing too deep." Nyr lifted a hand to feel the side of her lower neck where the bandages wrapped around it and her shoulder. It was tight to move and probably hurt more than her body was telling her. Based on the drip bag attached to her vein though she figured she must've been on some drug to lessen the pain.

"But other than that there is your amnesia-"

Nyr cut him off quickly as an idea hit her and she immediately asked, "could you explain that to me again? Aren't there different types of amnesia? What even are the consequences of oxygen deprivation?" Leave it to her to survive (although that was still questionable) the car collision in New York only to wake up with an alternate identity stuck with health issues for the rest of her life. Gods, her best mate Tasya would have a field day with her _terrible timing and circumstance _if only she could see her now.

Doc paused, furrowing his brows to likely arrange his thoughts and then answered. "The technical term to suit your situation would be called Brain Hypoxia. It's a condition where the brain isn't getting enough oxygen causing you to suffer memory loss, poor judgment or motor condition. Fortunately, you only seem to have the first; the memory loss." He took a breath before continuing.

"We're not sure how long your oxygen had been cut off and since you were in a coma for five days it is possible you were under for more than five minutes which is around the time the brain's neurons begin to die. Like I said before, you're lucky to be alive. If you were wondering, brain hypoxia is pretty common for drowning survivors. You've made it this far, you'll make it further." He assured her and Nyrtiri felt a wave of gratitude to him.

"Your EEG measured the electrical activity of your brain and pinpoint seizures. We're still processing the results of the scan. You only needed a ventilator for the first day and I have you on medication to curb potential seizures. We'll need more time to diagnose what you may have and don't have. Please let me or one of the nurses know if you have insomnia, hallucinations, or muscle spasms in the coming days. Do you have any more questions?"

She thought about it and nodded as something came to mind.

"Can you take me off the sedatives? I think it'll help me get used to all of this. If the pain becomes too much I'll let you know," she reassured. The doc nodded after a moment of consideration even if he didn't seem too pleased with the idea.

"Once we hear from one or both of your guardians we'll talk more about your treatment options. Although you're seventeen, our protocol is protocol." Nyr smiled at the unspoken mention of 'paperwork is paperwork.' She understood and now she had more information about... herself.

"Well, I need to go see my other patients but I recommend you get some rest, Isabella. Your body needs as much time as it can to recover from your ordeal." But as he stood up from the chair Nyr spoke up.

"May I be called something else? I get that it's my given name and all but it's like naming a stray dog off the street you don't plan to look after.. just something that beats 'her' or god-forbid 'it'. It just doesn't... feel like mine." Doctor Jorgenson shook his head. "Dissociating from your name may make memory recovery harder. Although we do not know if your memory loss is permanent or not it is best not to completely alienate the possibility."

"Then... what about a nickname?" She asked, well, pleaded was more like it. She really didn't want to be stuck with Isabella or even Bella. The name itself was so dull. A boring contrast to _her_ real name. She was going to change her name back when she was old enough anyways but if the doctor approved then it would make the transitioning easier on the people in her new life.

"I suppose so. What did you have in mind?"

"How about... Isa, pronounced I-za?"

Doc smiled and made way to the door entry. "Rest well then, Isa Swan."

The rest of the week went by slow but fortunately the morning after her conversation with the doctor she was told they managed to get a hold of her father, who in turn somehow managed to get a hold of her mother so she could return the hospital's phone calls.

She didn't know what this woman called her mother was apparently like but missing the fact that her only child was in a hospital after nearly dying and had been there for six days before she heard the news from her ex-husband left a poor impression on her and by the expression of the nurses when such woman was brought up in conversation, it seemed she wasn't the only one left with that impression.

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On the seventh day, it had been nearly two weeks since she was hospitalized and she was becoming stir crazy with lying in bed doing practically nothing as her body healed. The nurses seemed impressed with how fast she was healing, occasionally muttering good genes (okay_ fine_ it was one time) under their breaths when they came to change her bandages and her silver lining came when a dark beauty called Octavia came around much more often than pity-eyed Audrey.

Octavia was like a breath of fresh air in a clustered hospital where anyone that knew her face gave her pitying looks more often than not. She was still a nurse but was good company to keep - even if her heart felt like aching and heavy for what - and more importantly who - she had lost. She longed for Amelia's touch every time Octavia's smooth cold fingers touched her skin when changing her bandages and tried to bite her tongue to keep herself from flirting. Usually. She wasn't sure what age the woman was, mid-to-late twenties maybe or even early thirties but she imagined she would just be seen as 'cute' if she flirted shamelessly with someone who was older than her in this body. But some things just slip out and she had to continue on normally like she hadn't 'knowingly' meant it as anything more than a compliment.

Fortunately, Octavia seemed to find it funny and wasn't - thank the gods - uncomfortable with the flirting, oftentimes teasing her back even if there was no magnetic attraction between them. Just some fun teasing.

Doctor Jorgenson would make his rounds and visit her when he could to inform her of any changes or discoveries with her scans and so far her Brain Hypoxia had been re-diagnosed as Anoxia when it became clear through her scans that she had undergone oxygen deprivation for over five minutes.

It hadn't helped when she found herself finally able to stretch her legs outside the confines of the hospital bed to move around more freely only to stumble and trip easily, her body feeling uncoordinated not just from an alien body but also how her brain signals weren't reaching her nerves fast enough (if she got what the nurses said right). So not only did she have trouble walking but sometimes she would drop objects in her hands from spasms or hand twitches she had absolutely no control over.

...it was infuriating.

Then there was the fact she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in too long. Insomnia hit her hard and often kept her up late. She had asked Octavia for a notepad or notebook to scribble away her thoughts when she couldn't sleep and was left with the thrumming of machines of the hospital and the sounds of the city outside the window in the meanwhile.

Not all was bad though.

It wasn't easy to explain but all Nyrtiri knew was that she found herself unable to explain a lot of things as of late. Like how she got here, who she even was if what she was had changed and of course there was also the why of all things that could've happened this was had actually happened to her when she was dying.

But this time she didn't have questions circling around that. This time something was different; there was more to living and her existence in the world than there ever had been before. She smiled little by little as she brushed her fingers across the gentle fragile petals of the flowers left on her bedside. A pleasant hum resonated from the sensitive nerves of her palm to the rest of her making her feel like her eyes had just opened for the first time.

She could only relate the feeling of placing her hand on a speaker as music played, the pulse of every sound's wavelength felt in the palm of her hand. It was kind of like the purring of a cat as she stroked its spine, the fuzziness that came when her hands fell asleep, or the mind-jolting contrast of going from a hot room to a cold one.

Not that she could _see_ the difference. It was more a 'knowing' kind of feeling. Like when the sky is overcast and you just know there's going to be a downpour no matter what the weather 'experts' claim is happening. Or that bad feeling that follows practically every woman when they walk home alone at night.

It was like an instinct or a sixth sense... a sense she knew she didn't have Before.

If nothing else, it was something to rejoice in whatever alternate hell she had landed herself in. There was too much on her mind these days since dying and waking up as someone she _knows_ she just isn't. She's read enough crime novels and fiction to know that insisting who she really is won't get her anyplace good and already she's so tired of being trapped inside this hospital.

Most of all she came to realize that she had to think about her situation. The one where she's underage and under control of a guardian. Nyrtiri gulped to herself even as she cursed herself for it. Her history as a minor wasn't something she didn't like to think about. Being an adult wasn't exactly the freedom she had in mind as a kid but it at least gave her legal actions for herself. It at least allowed her to get the fuck away from her messed-up family drama.

It at least wasn't as bad as it could've been, as far as domestic violence goes.

"Hey, girl, look what I found in the vending machines!" Nyr looked over quickly to see Octavia leaning against the doorway, an excited - and a tad ridiculous - grin stretching across her features, highlighting her natural (even when exhausted) beauty. Raising an eyebrow in intrigue, she looked Octavia up and down until her eyes found the wrapped treat with large bold letters decorating the front. "You lucky dog," Nyr exclaimed, stretching her arms out in a grand gesture. "Hoarding all the snickers to yourself," she replied with a teasing smile.

Octavia laughed and walked forward, extending the hand to her where the treat was held. "Be glad I like you. Otherwise bye-bye chocolate and hello shitty hospital food."

Nyr just rolled her eyes but didn't hesitate to lay claim to the chocolate bar.

"One would think as a nurse you'd promote your workplace 'assets' with a little more appreciation."

The nurse flipped her dark burgundy hair over her shoulder with a dismissive scoff. "Please. Everyone knows the universal truth about hospitals. The. Food. Sucks."

Nyrtiri shrugged. "Isn't there some 5-star gourmet food in a hospital only celebrities can afford," she gestured something breaking as she continued. "I heard celebs would purposefully get sick or break a bone in order to get signed in."

"Ha!" Octavia started, planting her hands purposefully on her hips. "Lording their status over all us meager peasants. Still, to work there would be interesting."

"Or terrible. Us common folk are nicer to their workforce," Nyr argued.

"But the tips are probably like over 20%!" Dollar signs practically flashed in the brunette's eyes as she drooled over the thought. Nyr clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "You don't get tips, remember? You're a nurse, not a waitress."

Octavia let out a really fake but amusing gasp of offense. "Why I never! See if I give you another chocolate bar," she tsked and went to stomp out but was stopped by a hand gently holding her wrist. Easy to break out of but the nurse didn't bother. "I don't need chocolate to have something sweet," Nyr practically purred and Octavia chuckled. "With compliments like that, I won't ever want to leave."

Nyrtiri let go with a wide grin and laughed as Octavia left with a teasing sway of her hips out the door.

"Having fun?" The Doc asked as he came in after the nurse's leave.

Nyr shrugged innocently. "She keeps me out of the madhouse."

"Well, I'm glad to find you in such a good mood," the man paused and Nyr took it as a cue that they were diving into something serious now. "I just came by to let you know you're father has arrived in the lobby. Your mother, I believe, will arrive shortly after."

Moods somewhat tense now, she took a deep breath as she mentally prepared herself for this meeting and shoved back any unwanted or invading emotions. When she was ready, she nodded to the doctor who stood. He gave her an encouraging smile that helped soothe her anxiety before he left and not long after a man with heavy lines under his eyes and even darker shadows on his eyelids stepped into the room. Before even so much a word was said between them they took in each other, Nyr taking note of everything to gauge how she should react. She didn't want to anger her guardian and start her new uncomfortable life with bad love between them.

"Hey, Bells." His voice was tired but thick with concern. Nyr felt warmth for the care. From the records, she hadn't seen much of her father in a long time. Most divorces left a little more than the distance between families.

"Bells, huh?" Nyr asked, both curious and wanting to break the ice between them.

He shifted, and she bit her lip to muffle the smile at the awkwardness that went between them. "Did you hear the report from the doc?" She asked, trying to prevent the silence from becoming uncomfortable. Her father let out a breath and his eyes seemed to grow even sadder, the lines under his eyes even more prominent by her question. "Yes, yes, he told me. I'm so sorry, Bells."

Nyr tried to comfort him with a reassuring smile. But she was never good at this sort of thing.

"I know to hear this from me won't really help but I don't really remember it. Please do not feel sad on my behalf," she didn't know if her words had helped but the man's shoulders did seem to lift slightly. His back straightened to put the commoner look out of her mind. Former military perhaps? She hadn't really asked more about her father outside his name and his married status. He was single and in his late forties. First impression? Not a bad guy, so at least there was that.

He took the chair close to her bedside but not too close as to breach her personal bubble, so to speak. Respects boundaries? Nyrtiri approves.

"I just can't believe this happened. I heard about Adam, good kid, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry for his family. Even if I can't remember him. I can feel the loss," and it was a half-truth. It was like the flower by her bedside. To feel its energy be snuffed out when it was once so _alive _a minute ago was a loss she could understand now. And it would weigh heavy on her heart as a reminder. Perhaps it was better that Isabella Swan - the real Isabella Swan - would never know her friends' death, would never have to grieve such a heavy loss.

Burdens could only be carried by those with strong shoulders but Nyrtiri didn't know how much weight she could take after losing so much. And she knew that the pain never truly went away; you only learned to live with it.

"But I'm still here. You didn't lose me," she smiled slightly in a sort of twisted humored way. "Even without memories, I can still make new ones. Things could be worse."

He chuckled dryly but his eyes looked lighter. "I wish I had your optimism, Bells."

She shrugged. "Whatever gets me out of this hospital."

He sighed. "About that, Bells. After the doctor clears you, I was wondering if you wanted to come back to my home. In Washington."

Nyrtiri was glad he was giving her a choice. Too much was an unknown to her. She has been to Washington before and that at least was familiar. She remembers the constant rain and the way it brought in the mist, how it made everything so much greener and colorful. The way her senses seemed to be heightened to the smell of grass, morning dew, and the trees. She remembers the apples, the coffee, and the fish.

The feel of the water under her touch, the smell of the ocean in the air, and the urban cities lit up in color and flocked with people from all places. But the rain didn't bring her the comfort it once did. In Arizona, there hasn't been much rain let alone storms for as long as she's been here. She doesn't want to dive head-first into a situation that she may not be able to handle. But her other option was to go with her mother - who she hadn't even met yet has made a lousy impression so far - and stay in Arizona.

But maybe she was just intolerable. If she was anything worse than neglectful she'd find out when they met.

If all else fails then she could take door number three: leave all-together. Take what she could with her and disappear. Maybe try and find out what had happened to her. If nothing else she'd make it a last resort.

"I don't know what to say. I need some time to consider," she wondered what it must seem like to the man. How she lost her memories and her friend in Arizona - even if she had no recollection of it - and yet wasn't leaping at an opportunity to get away from it all. She sighed and even though he took it well, he remained anxious.

Nyrtiri couldn't say she blamed him.

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"Bella? Bella!" The sound of a harried woman broke Nyrtiri's concentration and she looked up from her notepad to find a middle-aged woman rush into her hospital room. She looked frantic. But it was an I-think-I-left-the-stove-on-at-home kind of frantic more than fuck-my-kid-could-have-been-killed - and maybe that's a little harsh considering they're just meeting but in her eyes, it took this woman way too long just to know she had been hospitalized. Like what? Did she lose her phone or something? Did a mother not know the purpose of emergency contacts?

"Mother, yes?" She drawled slowly, giving the Swan matriarch a quick analysis before closing her notepad to properly greet this... person.

"Oh sweetie, I came as soon as I heard! I just repel technology," she laughed and Nyrtiri wasn't buying it. Harsh, yeah, she knew. But really, she wondered if she should feel sorry for Bella Swan or relieved she no longer had to deal with such a woman in her life. As a parental figure no less.

"It happens," she said to set a middle-ground. Like with the father in her life. It was better to start a mediator than create a hostile environment on the first day. She watched as the woman pulled the nearby chair close to her bedside before taking her warm hands in unwelcomed icy cold. Goosebumps went up to her arms and she began to wonder how so many people who lived in a place as hot as Arizona seemed to have cold hands.

"Where were you?" She asked, curiosity overcoming mediation. The self-proclaimed mother must've been daft at social cues because she didn't even pick up the slight against herself. Instead, her eyes got a distant look and a slow grin lifted her expression making her glow in happiness. Nyrtiri recognized the look well from Tasya and she didn't take kindly for the objects of comparison. "I forgot you wouldn't remember," she began. "While you and Adam left to see his family in the Navajo reservation, Phil - my fiance - and I took a small vacation for ourselves."

Nyrtiri may have been a new person in a new life but she was also a grown woman in her twenties. She knew the unspoken words and was irritated that the mother of this girl didn't at least take some precautions to remain in contact while on her early honeymoon.

"I see. Where did you two go?" She asked because if it was in the house she lived in then she _definitely would _jump at the opportunity to leave for Forks with her father.

"I couldn't wait for you to ask! We went down south and went on tour," she paused and concern flashed across her expression. "Oh but I'm sure you and Adam had fun as well."

Bothered by the lack of regard for the dead she pushed (innocently) and said, "Adam's dead. He died in the crash." _Whatever fun we had was probably destroyed by that. _

The redhead flinched and went to stroke her hand but Nyrtiri pulled away and ignored the look of hurt that went through this mother's eyes. "Do you even care?" Fuck being the mediator. She could take the nonchalance for her near-death experience in stride - she was used to it - but the dismissal of Adam? The lack of consideration for her daughter's loss? Regardless of memory? At least sit in silence and be silent support if nothing could be said but this-

"Oh, of course, I care sweety!" The woman said and emphasized her hurt. Oh-ho! Forget her own flesh and blood in the hospital and focus on herself! Egotistical much? "You-you're just feeling confused-"

Nyrtiri cut her off ruthlessly. "Oh, confused? No memories of our once loving relationship, I'm sure." Something dark and angry surfaced inside her and for once she didn't try to fight it. She let it drip into her tone like fast-acting venom. "Then I'm sure none of this will affect you since clearly this isn't your-daughter-who-is-in-the-hospital-after-dying. This is just a stranger calling you out for your blatant negligence; your inability to be an upstanding parental figure; complete with irresponsible behavior that I honestly wonder how your daughter lived as long as she has."

She threw her hands up in exaggeration.

"Oh wait: she didn't!" The end of her tirade finished with a roar she swore must've been heard throughout the entire hospital but she didn't give a damn. She was so triggered that her entire body was shaking and half of it was an aching reminder that her chest was still bruised and she shouldn't have strained herself-

A sharp pain shot through her chest and her spine arched, eyebrows flattened for the weakness she was unable to suppress - ruining the dress-done she was trying to give this woman.

"Bella!"

"Hey, lady I think it's time you leave," she heard Octavia's voice like a welcomed rush of relief but couldn't let it last as she pressed against her chest - trying to catch her breath.

"I have a right to be here-"

"And I have a right to deem when people like you are making my patient's health worse!"

"That's enough!" The room went silent, well, silent except for her ragged breathing as the doc returned. Nyrtiri didn't watch as they managed to escort the walking train-wreck from the room even though she wanted to feel victorious over it. She felt nauseous and weak - two things she hated most. She wished none of this was happening around her.

To think that any of this was real-

She wanted to say that someone had stolen her identity and paid everyone to give her a new one. That she was the result of attempted assassination and now that she lived, killing her would bring too much attention and so she had to disappear in a different way. That they paid everyone off and changed the paperwork and government papers to make it so. To make her question her reality so much that the only way she could possibly cope was by believing it.

Nyrtiri wanted herself to be a victim of diabolical crime. She wanted to be a protagonist out of one of her favorite crime novels. She wanted anything but the reality she knew in total clarity was not the one she had left as Nyrtiri. For the reality she must attend to was something unreal.

She wanted to live _her _life. Not experience some random teenager's life unfold like a soap opera!

"You okay, sweet thing?" Octavia tried to tease but her voice came out surprisingly soft. Nyr opened her eyes but didn't look at her - full of so much anger and sorrow. "I'll make sure you're mother can't get back here again," the doc said and Nyr appreciated it, but she didn't have any words she could give right now so instead she relaxed her tense muscles to show she was good with that.

The good doctor left and Octavia remained, giving her personal space as Nyrtiri worked to regain her confidence after that disastrous meeting.

"Thanks," her voice husked out deeper than she meant to but it sounded sad so it wasn't like it could be misinterpreted. "No problem. I'm always waiting for an excuse to use my jiu-Jitsu!" Attention caught, Nyr sat up and finally looked at her - curious.

"You know jiu-jitsu?" She repeated. The nurse huffed but grinned showing she wasn't offended. "I'll have you know I served two tours in Iraq as a field medic before I settled down out here."

"Wow, you just went from a nine to a ten!"

Octavia shook her fist like an angry old man at her. "I'll have you know that I was always a ten!"

"Sure," she teased and the serious mood fell into a lighter one.

"Settled down, though? Who's the lucky one?" She asked with a give-me-an-opening-please smile.

"I hate to break it to you but she's someone you can't beat," she snarked and Nyr groaned. "Ah come on, give me something good!"

Octavia clearly enjoyed dragging it out.

"Dark, chiseled, brilliant."

Nyr could've had a chance had she still been herself from Before.

"Ugh, fine," Nyrtiri backed off. "Keep your personal life personal." She jabbed a finger at her. "But don't think I'm gonna let up just because you're not single."

Octavia flipped her hair back. "Wouldn't be fun otherwise."

She rolled her eyes but couldn't stop her lips twitching into a smile. The affair of the airhead from before was practically forgotten and the day continued on with little fanfare.

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Early the next morning the man she was to call her father swung by with some barbeque take-out. She decided he was her new favorite person as she bit into the fried ocra with glee.

"I'll go," she blurted out randomly, so suddenly that the man dropped his sandwich. She sniggered and the embarrassed man sheepishly picked it back up, his attention on her.

Nyrtiri took a deep breath and exhaled in the next moment. Another deep breath and she determinedly took on her new identity; exhaling her past and hopefully, the terms in the manner she had died.

"I'll go with you to Washington."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hijacked**

**Chapter 2**

The sky was crying as rain poured down from the stormy clouds above. Nyrtiri thought it was a fitting reminder of what brought her to these circumstances as she stubbornly remained outside the doors of a building she was meant to go to an appointment in.

_"Bells," Charlie began and Nyrtiri interrupted the chief of police before he could get another word in. "It's Isa," she snarled, avoiding looking in the mirrors of the vehicle to stave the truth off as long as she could. The man let out a deep sigh that made his gray hair stand out and with a deep frown, he continued. "I know you don't like this, Isa, but you need to talk to someone about what happened."_

_Nyrtiri shook her head in denial, turning away from this body's father to stay forlornly out the window. "I can't," she countered, exhausted from saying the same thing over and over. _

_"Please," he implored but the words came out sad and almost begging. She closed her eyes at the familiar expression and instead replaced her arguments with silence. _

It was hard for her to go to someone else for help. For years it was Nyrtiri who was the help when her brother got himself in trouble in their scruffy neighborhood and when her mother walked out. Even her father abandoned them both when he learned the woman he was sleeping with was going to have his children.

She did not have an easy life but she was always in control of it. Not even death should take that from her.

But, as her phone clicked five after she felt an uneasy sensation in her gut. She looked up at the looming tower where she was meant to meet some family councilor inside and even as she wanted to be anywhere but here she found herself walking inside the door anyway, her eyes forward and her stride hurried.

Once she was alone in the elevator she found that she had forgotten the floor number and took a guess only to end up in the wrong place. Two more times she missed her floor until finally, she found she was in the right place but as she stood outside with a hand on the door she found herself frozen at the threshold, uncertain of herself all of a sudden.

However, the choice was made for her when the door opened and Nytiri awkwardly squished herself against the wall as the stranger passed by her and the woman she was met to be counseled by welcomed her inside with a smile. It was unnerving to be treated with such acknowledgment as the woman saw through this body's reflection and saw a different person entirely underneath this reflection.

Nytiri didn't know what she was going to say but as she sat down on the plush cushions of a couch, she found this wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

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Later that day when she took a lyft to her new home in a small town of Washington she found herself surrounded by boxes belonging to Charlie's daughter that she was to sort through and bag what she didn't care to keep. It was strange going through someone else's things and treating them like they were her own. She felt like a thief and a ghost as she saw the artworks of a child and half-full photo albums of friends, families, and places of happier times.

There were journals that told less about this body and more about the girl lost within. A girl who believed in fairy tales and sappy love stories. Nyrtiri doubted if she met this girl in person they wouldn't have got along but right now, it was like she was standing in front of the girl's grave and reading the memoir to try and picture what kind of person she was when she lived.

Her entire clothing inventory consisted of blue jeans, plain pajamas, and cotton long-sleeved shirts in various cool tones. There were a couple of flannels too and Nyrtiri felt like such a creep sorting through the girl's underwear but damn, did she need to. She groaned at the state of everything and bagged more crap than she cared to admit.

Even the house of the police chief was a bit stuffy and Nytiri spent her entire evening cleaning it up and ordering it in her own way. She was no one's housemaid but she couldn't help but feel some compassion for the man who had lost his daughter forever in a way he would never understand.

She wanted to run and never come back since the first time she woke up and realized she was in a teenager's body. But she also had a heart, as broken as it was, and wanted to give the chief one last year with his daughter before she dropped off the face of the earth. And, maybe she could find out if this was a family curse or something. Just... something that could provide her with an answer as to why this has happened to her.

But nothing in Bella's things provided her with an answer. She took the boxes with the few things she was willing to call her own and placed the rest at the front by the door with the exception of the girl's journals. They were childish and petty, a classic naive teenage girl whose head lived more in the clouds than down to earth. Nyrtiri didn't know what happened to her but she knew the amnesia would only work with her so long and maybe she was paranoid getting rid of Bella's perspective from her life - but if this paranoia had served her well in the ghetto then it would serve her well in a small town too.

It was poetic as Nyrtiri burned Bella's diaries causing the fire to turn pink as white pages turned black. Almost like looking at a reflection of her old life into this one: where black turns to white of the ashes of her old life. A reflection that would never go away.

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Ever since the crash had changed her life, Nyrtiri hasn't been able to put herself behind the steering wheel. The very thought of driving again, in a place of constant rain like Washington no less, terrifies her. But some things needed to be done and she couldn't afford to take a Lyft everywhere to do her business. So, she compromised.

As someone who grew up in New York, Nyrtiri thought nothing of walking everywhere by foot but her body didn't seem to agree and so taking the bus it was. With what she knew about small towns wasn't good for a relatively private person and so going to Port Angeles was her salvation of finding a crowd that minded their own business and didn't busy-body beyond easy pick-pocketing.

Going through the local mall for clothes was a new experience because finding clothes and make-up that suited her tastes was the easy part... the hard part was looking in the mirror to see her face only to see a stranger again. As an adult, it was even stranger to see a teenager's face and body that hadn't yet grown into its natural beauty wearing her clothes. Nevertheless, she managed to replace her entire wardrobe with only a few colors changed in order to go with her (almost luminescent) pale complexion and brown eyes.

But her biggest change of all was her hair-cut; a much needed development in order to distinguish 'Isa' from Isabella. She cut her hair similarly to the way she'd worn it as a teenager with both side shaved leaving only her luxurious long hair going from the middle of her head from the front to back. Although she was tempted to cut the length she found that when parting her hair to one side it actually looked pretty good on this body and it made what little curves this body have stand out - the chest area even more so, but the pads she stuffed into her bra might've had something to do with that. It might've seemed weird to the other women in the dressing room but Nyrtiri knew how to use her looks to her advantage and losing that would frankly suck.

The last thing she did was pierce her ears to wear her long-missed cuffs. Combined with her newly applicable make-up and the three lines she had shaved just above her ear, the innocent and preteen looking girl (who was actually sixteen, she checked) look more in her twenties. The bambi shaped eyes were now lined with sharp edges a deep charcoal and the green eye shadow made the sandstone in her brown eyes pop all the more. A good waxing of her face made it smooth and her eyebrows now refined to a T.

To be honest it felt a little weird doing the complete make-over... it almost felt like she was dressing up a corpse for a viewing at a funeral but just for that morbid thought she added a good amount of blush that blended into her skin naturally and made it more apparent that she did have blood running through her veins. On her way out she was half-tempted to get a tattoo to seal the dead of permanent residence (because there was no way her body survived the crash site, right?) but she remembered she had a chief of police for a guardian at home and opted to wait a few years before doing so. Last thing she needed was to give that man a heart attack.

She smiled at the thought, not in the idea of him dying but just in having someone to look after her. She wouldn't make it easy, of course, but it was nice. Just as she was leaving the building she noticed the bus departing from its rest stop and sighed. She looked around and saw that the next bus wouldn't arrive for a half an hour and the thought of waiting so long in the wet and the cold was absurd so with little consideration Nyrtiri took a different route with the aims of seeing what other stores would catch her interest.

The clouds had almost completely blocked the sky making the time of day misleading but when Nyrtiri looked up and caught the darkening purple sky she suddenly became aware how late in the evening it was now and tensed, keeping a self-awareness around her as she stuck to the main side-walks down the street where she was in most public view. But her luck ran out when the rain really begun to fall in a downpour and it took several swipes of her eyes to blink through the rain. Finally annoyed, she darted away from the sidewalk to seek cover underneath the rooftop in an alleyway that was dark and filthy but otherwise abandoned.

She grumbled to herself as she shook out the rain in her new clothing and combed her wet product-smelling hair out of her face and eyes. The rain was so loud she struggled to hear even herself think. Cold, she crossed her arms around her stomach for warmth and pressed them close waiting for the shivering to stop. She closed her eyes in an attempt to ignore the sound of car horns blaring and tires squealing through puddles in this rain.

"Yeah man, I'd tap that," she heard a man laugh nearby and when she looked up through her drenched hair she saw a small group of what looked to be teenagers walking toward her. She cursed, and swiftly turned her eyes to the side to spot her escape routes but the fire escape would be a pain to get up with everything slick from the rain. Taking the route the way she came in meant turning her back and that wasn't a comforting thought. But the boys were too close to react now so she instead decided to play the part and lit a cigarette smoothly to hold against her mouth, the smoke billowing out in front of her in a steady stream.

"Hey girl, feel like taking a ride?" The other boys sniggered at the blatant sex insinuation. Nyrtiri held back rolling her eyes. She forgot how basic teenager boys were with their pick-up lines. Too busy thinking about the tightening of their pants than of persuading a woman of actually wanting to feel them up. "It'll cost you five," she said boredom, not giving an inch as she took another shot of smoke.

"Five bucks! Hell yeah!" The boys hooted and hollered, all likely thinking of sharing the same ride. Nyrtiri gave them a dismissing hand. "Five hundred," she explained and the boys looked at each other. "What?" They exclaimed but Nyrtiri wasn't done. "Each," she said and extended a hand to touch the leader of the gang's bicep. Her touch was almost feather light but she pressed down harder as she reached his chest and stepped into her personal space. Her hand drifted higher until she was cupping his neck as though to lean up for a kiss.

"Trust me, it's worth it," she breathed warmly against his throat and heard him swallow thickly. The tent in his pants became all the more apparent but before he could do anything he was yanked back by his friends who were all glaring at him, clearly turning against him. Good, she decided, stepping back casually against the wall to continue smoking, watching as the boys argued and fought among themselves.

"Forget it, man, let's go." And with that they left, clearly deciding taking a hooker was too much for their wallets and Nyrtiri smoothly continued to smoke as they got out of sight. Once gone, Nyrtiri stabbed the but of the cigarette into the wall before flicking it aside, exhaling the remaining smoke in her lungs. She hadn't smoked in years but man was it a good distraction. She was lucky they had been just teenagers, any older and they likely would've just beat the hell out of her to get what they wanted from her. The boys though, most of them were so high on their hormones that they were just looking for an easy hit.

She shook her head, hating how familiar she was with this routine and straightened the collar of her jacket of any excess rain that had gathered there. But just as she was about to walk away she heard screaming in the direction the boys left. And it wasn't the kind of shit-I-just-found-a-dead-body or even a fuck-there's-a-gun-pointed-at-my head... no, this was more like witnessing murder of a shooting or being pushed into the middle of a tollway only to be slammed into a semi and you were watching the entire thing.

Every instinct in her body was screaming at her to get out of there but she was afraid to make any noise. The thing that caught everyone's attention were the footsteps running away and so she panicked as she looked around for a hiding place. She ended up folding herself against some trash cans and threw a ripped up bag of trash over her in hopes the smell would make an audience easily dismiss her.

The screams continued one by one until they were each cut off. It was painful just listening to it and she didn't want to know what likes of horror was happening to them. Soon, the racket was once again drowned out by the rain until the boys were silenced entirely and she was left feeling her heart pound in her chest like it was about to explode as she waited for the monster to pass.

The sound of heels drew her attention as they clicked loudly against the pavement and Nyrtiri suddenly held her breath, breathing shallowly through her mouth only when she absolutely had to, and watched as a red-head came into view with what she was certain wasn't ketchup smeared all over her mouth like she was some manner of zombie or cannibal. Worse, in the darkness of the alley the woman's eye color was apparent and the crimson red colored sent a chill down her spine. She hoped this sicko was just wearing contacts but the way everything in her was screaming at her that this woman was very dangerous made her wonder if this truly was a monster in human skin.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," the woman called out, her eyes darting around the alley. Ice cold water felt like it had dumped over her - was this woman looking for her? Did she know she was still here? "I can smell you for miles. I've been looking for you for so long. Come out, mon amour," it was beyond creepy to hear this from her and she half-expected to find someone else this woman was clearly speaking to her but it was only them. Not to mention if saying she stunk for miles was some sort of persuasion this woman needed work. She was clearly bat-shit crazy.

"It'll just take one bite and we'll be together forever, darlin'," the woman purred and Nyrtiri hated how the seductive tone sent heat right down to her core. How could such a sick person cause her to feel wet in her presence? She was disgusted at herself for the betrayal of her body. But then when she looked up she found eyes were meeting her's and the disgust was replaced with terror.

"There you are, my lovely," the woman drawled and in one second into the next she was by Nyrtiri with the trash thrown away from covering her form. She smirked as she breathed in deep and invaded her personal space by stepping right up to her like she was going to kiss her. "I can feel your love for me," she husked and Nyrtiri startled to feel no breath from the woman's mouth despite their close proximity.

"B-back off," she stammered, trying to sound tough like she had with the boys but failed spectacularly.

There was just something undeniably wrong about this woman and it wasn't just the mental health she was talking about. The vampire pouted but her eyes were amused and it wasn't a look Nyrtiri liked directed at her. There was just something entirely predatory about this woman that sent every red light off in her head yet still sent pleasure down in her core. It was a disgusting betrayal warring between her mind and her body that had Nyrtiri wanting to lash out in fury. So, she did and swung her best right hook in hopes of throwing the woman out of her person space. Instead the unexpected happened the moment her hand came in contact with the woman's skin. The crack was audible and Nyr heard the pain before she felt the bone break leaving her hunched over holding her hand.

"What the hell!" She shouted through the pain, throwing herself away from the woman even though it only backed herself closer to the wall. The woman clicked her tongue at her and Nyrtiri found not even a bruise was left by her punch when she knew she had hit skin. "You a bloody cyborg or some shit?" She insulted, angry over her broken hand and temporarily overcoming her fear. "Or something," the woman hummed and the sound she practically felt in her chest. She closed her eyes tight, unable to look at the woman anymore but a hand stopped her from completely turning away.

"You're so fragile, now," the woman cooed like she was comforting an infant. "But soon you will be just like me," she promised and pressed her lips against her neck which sent goosebumps rising everywhere. Never before had she felt anyone so cold before - not even when she was dying - and no matter how much she struggled in the woman's arms she didn't move an inch. "Shh," she whispered against her skin. "I'll be beside you through it all," and with that the woman bit her. Nyrtiri tried to push the woman away as her teeth sunk deep in her neck and she swore she was drinking her blood like some sick zombie-wannabe. She tried to scream bloody murder (like she honestly should've started with all along) but her voice was silenced and all that came out was a gasp - which seemed to turn on the woman who pressed her up against the wall like they were hormonal teenagers making out for the first time.

But the pleasant feeling was quickly overwhelmed by a burning fire ripping and tearing itself through her flesh. It was like her blood had been replaced with lighter fluid and the woman's bite started the fire. It wrapped around her like a vice and Nyrtiri screamed even as nothing was heard through her lungs. She tried to take in a breath, to ground herself, but somehow it only made it worse like she was breathing in smoke of the fire inside her. The woman didn't seem to care as she continued drinking - _actually drinking _\- from her neck with her body fully pushed up into her own.

It was terrifying how her body had suddenly become a prison and the woman seemed to be gaining pleasure out of her agony. She hated this woman and this body on a level she hadn't felt before and it was a feeling that couldn't even overwhelm the pain. She hated how this body betrayed her and she wanted this woman away from her more than anything. She wanted - no - _Nyrtiri needed _her to get away. The woman choked suddenly and she felt the movement go through her entire body like a seizure. Her eyes drifted to stare forward absently from where the fire began to squeeze her heart even as the woman tore herself (and a good chunk of her neck) away from her before expelling the contents of her stomach to the side which came out sluggish black.

"Dead man's blood," the woman coughed, before following it with a nasty swearword. Nyrtiri tried to smirk at the vindictive bitch but she somehow felt detached from her body and the woman must've realized something was wrong in the same moment. "No," she cried even as more black blood dripped from her lips. "You were supposed to be the one!" She screamed and pushed Nyrtiri away from her where she was thrown several feet away unto the cold wet ground but any pain from the pavement was small in comparison to what she was feeling now.

"You're human! How can you reject my venom!" The woman roared and Nyrtiri wondered if she was a failed drug experiment the woman tried. It was becoming harder and harder to breath until her lungs closed up entirely and she was left drowning without water all over again. Nyrtiri tried to fight it, not wanting to die all over again, and with a powerful surge of energy she found herself suddenly stumbling back onto her feet. It was strange though, Nyrtiri decided, as she suddenly felt weightless and unburdened. She lifted her broken hand only to find there was no pain at all and she could move it fine... the only problem was that she could see through her arm like it was transparent. Looking down at herself she found that she was ghostly from the feet up and although she could not put one hand through the other she _could _however see the pavement through her arm.

The woman was crying black blood from her eyes, nose, and even ears along with her mouth that Nyrtiri for once didn't feel betrayed by her body and felt glad that the bitch was suffering. But it was also strange how she was standing right in front of the woman and she wasn't even looking at her... it was like she wasn't even there. Confused, Nyrtiri inspected herself again and found that she wasn't wearing her new clothes (as weird as it was to tell transparent and silver-colored) but rather the clothes she was pretty sure she died wearing (she knew because this was her favorite bomber jacket in the entire world). She put a hand through her hair and felt the familiar dreadlocks that she thought she'd never feel again and was hit with a sense of rightness in that moment of realization.

Was she dead? It was a question that had her turning around to see if the world looked any different than before but her inspection came to a halt when she saw the girl in the mirror lying on the ground staring aimlessly into the sky. A girl that had a silver chain extending from her chest that was attached to her body too. She walked over to the body and saw no rising chest or blinking from the too-blank eyes that she realized she was dead and what remained of her neck was covered in black liquid she could only assume was her blood. "What the hell," she whispered as she moved a hand as to caress her face only to suddenly feel herself _pulled _in to the girl and everything went black.

The next time Nyr opened her eyes she felt the weight of the world literally slam back into her full throttle. It was like a punch to the diaphragm and it left her gulping down air like a man would drink water in the desert. Her neck was killing her and when she found the strength to sit up she was met with the sight of the red-eyed woman crouched a few feet away from her covered in the same liquid that was on her neck. She brought up a hand to stop the bleeding only to feel smooth skin - the bite mark she knew was there along with the chunk of flesh ripped out was gone. The black liquid now just looked like someone had spilled paint on her rather than...

"I don't believe it," the woman gasped and Nyr glared at her for causing all of this. "No one has seen... There hasn't been the likes of you since... No," the woman rambled but the moment Nyr realized she had answers she got to her feet to stand in front of the lethal predator she had somehow managed to cripple. "Tell me what the hell you're going on about, bitch," she said and yanked on her orange-tinted hair viciously. The woman once made of stone now seemed to feel her hair being yanked from her skull and Nyr was glad to see that something made her vulnerable.

"-and you don't even know what you are. Incredible," the woman spoke of her in awe like she hadn't just ripped out her thought earlier. Nyr yanked harder at her hair until some came loose causing the woman to hiss in both pain and loss. "The Ouroboros; one of the founders of the Conclave; the people who defy death to live a cursed life... no one forgets an extinct species," the woman chuckled as the irony twisted her lips. "To think that the One for me would be an Ouroboros, just my luck I suppose," the woman said before tossing her head to the side to puck more black blood.

"Are you dying?" Nyr asked when she couldn't think of anything else to say. "Will this always happen?" She continued to question, hoping the woman would continue to provide her the answers in believing she's "the one".

"Dead man's blood is lethal to vampires - that's what I am," the woman answered. She paused to wipe the blood from her eyes making her face stain like smeared mascara. "And I don't know if it will always happen to vampires... Every Ouroboros has been known to have different abilities. Your blood was delicious until it wasn't... so maybe whatever you were thinking changed your blood - but that's all I know."

Nyr wasn't finished though. Even though it disgusted her to do so she held the woman's cheek in one hand as she stared in her eyes for more. "Tell me what the Conclave is," she demanded, seeking answers from the dying creature. "It is our government; our justice; and our court. It is where we make our laws and maintain peace with the other clans." Nyr furrowed her brows and chose her last question wisely when more blood began to pour from the woman's eyes and mouth. "Are they hunting me or was that just you?"

The woman smiled softly but Nyr wasn't deluded by the soft expression to the monster inside. "Just me, always seeking you, my beloved-" she coughed out more blood and Nyr leap away from the spills. The woman - the vampire - coughed and hacked over and over in a useless attempt to clear the liquid from her throat but it was like trying to drain an ocean by drinking from a straw. It was a new feeling to stand over the dying predator knowing she was the cause and not feeling a single thing at the sight of an immortal being succumbing to death. Acknowledging the fact that she had been the prey who became the predator. That she wasn't as human as she thought she was.

And more, as she watched the vampire fought her last battle, the knowledge that she wasn't the only non-human felt like both the end of the world and the beginning.

.

.

.

Sitting on the couch with her pseudo-father eating dinner was perhaps the most bizarre she had ever felt since she died. Her day had been busy and then it had been terrifying but the life-altering experience didn't stop her from having a relatively normal evening with take-out from the local dinner and her father taking in her new haircut without making a big deal out of it. After she got back from Port Angeles the first thing she did was take a shower but as much as she could wash out the blood she couldn't wash out the reminder that she had almost died _again _only to learn she hadn't truly died at the same time. It was a concept that was difficult to wrap her mind around since she was never really one for fictional stories of grandeur and fantasy.

Nyrtiri had accepted long ago that life was harsh and it was often cruel but there were little things and individuals that could make living worthwhile and beautiful. People like Amelia and places like Brazil or that music academy down the street that always had the most beautiful music reverberating from the walls. She smiled in remembrance as she took another bite of her pork roast before looking over at her father who was clearly focused on the baseball game. "Hey, dad?" She asked, and felt warmth build in her chest when he turned his head away from the game to listen to her even though she knew he loved the sport. "Yea Bells? I mean, Isa?" He replied with an apologetic look for the error. Nyr waved it away, understanding that she was both his daughter and a stranger - that even with his daughter dead, her memory would continue in Nyr and she didn't want to disgrace that in front of her own (clearly loving) father. Not even she, raised in the streets, had the heart to do that to him and if that mean fighting off a vampire in the evening to have a normal dinner with him every day than she would.

"What am I going to do?" She asked bluntly because this body was sixteen years old when it died and that meant, even with her here, she could still give this man one or two years before she took off to be on her own for good. If that meant going to school and graduating - something she hadn't done the first time around - than she would. Charlie straightened at the question and seemed to give it some serious thought. "Well, I was considering enrolling you at the local high school if you were comfortable with it... but after everything, and the amnesia, if you don't feel comfortable with that I could find some online school for you."

The consideration was sweet but Nyr didn't know what she would do with all the extra time if she took online classes. Going to a public school with a ton of immature, small town hormonal teens sounded like a pain but as she thought about the long-time benefits and long-winded excuses she could give if she graduated with a diploma, it would probably make the man believe her disappearance wouldn't result in a tragedy. She hadn't completely decided on a plan but she figured she could make something up on the way.

"I'll go to public school," she replied before the silence could get awkward but that didn't stop Charlie from nodding his head and being generally awkward before he turned back to the game. Nyr kept her eyes on the screen but wasn't really watching, her mind racing at the new information she had gained today as she came up with and discarded theories over and over. By the time she was headed to bed she wondered if she was staying less for Charlie and more for herself in fear of what sort of clans existed in a conclave of creatures like vampires (of all things) in a world that had seemed so normal and ordinary until today.

Where the only odd one out was her.

.

.

.

Adam and Bella died on the last day of November but only the former would be given a death certificate with a body to mourn by his family. For Bella, her body continued walking among the living with a different soul living her life and for the time Nyrtiri slept as her new body was stabilized to live on its own facilities again, the fall semester had ended. Thus, she would be going to High School in the Spring. It made blending in even harder in such a small town and if anyone did their google search of her they'd have the perfect gossip for her remaining time in the school. But Nyrtiri had faced greater challenges than small towns and high schools so she tried not to overthink it.

After all, she wasn't here to make friends or to even make a new life for herself (as ironic as that statement is). No, Nyrtiri was here to give Bella's father the rest of his daughter's childhood and to selfishly but honestly prepare herself for what kind of world awaited someone like her. What kind of world an Ouroboros belonged to. She couldn't complete delude herself about what she was and even her father noticed something different about her. It wasn't anything blatantly obvious and to Charlie it just looked like a teenager's dream of individualism but to Nyrtiri it was a reminder that she was something more than she appeared.

And it came in the form of intricate ink in the center of her chest (right where she remembered the chain to have been) of a snake eating its own tail. Inside the circle of the snake was an odd symbol that Nyrtiri could best describe as a winding spiral that was more an outline of the shape of a spiral than the spiral itself. It was beautiful but it also wasn't there before and she could only guess it had something to do with what happened in Port Angeles.

Explaining it to her father had been a headache because she knew what a tattoo on an underage teenager's body meant to a responsible father that also just happened to be the chief of police. No matter what argument she used, Nyrtiri found herself grounded until her first day of school began and it had been a long two weeks doing errands for Charlie while she waited for it to end.

Now, it was the first day of Spring's semester and just to remind her that this was technically her last hour she was grounded, he dropped her off at the front of the school in his police cruiser. When Nyrtiri got out of his car she had the attention of the entire parking lot and it took all of her self-control to act like this was normal routine for her and she walked across the entire - very large - parking lot into the school with the most disinterested expression she could pull off.

If nothing else, having the general populace know she was the Chief's daughter was a great repellent for hormonal teenagers wanting to have sex in a broom closet. And, it sorted the gossip mongrels from the actual individual thinkers leaving Nyrtiri knowing the students who not to antagonize and those who couldn't give a flip like her.

All in all, at the end of the day school was what it always had been to Nyrtiri: a pain but an easy one to ignore once she set up a routine. She was friendly enough to everyone but made sure to take her lunch to eat outside even when it rained and she pretended like her shakes were from the cold and not from the reminder of the night she died. The teacher's took in her new presence in pretty well and only one guy was a bastard about it. The kids were classic small town students but there were some unique individuals scattered within the stereotypical ones.

There was Angela, who was very beautiful even with her fading acne and large frame glasses. She always had a camera around her neck and Nyrtiri allowed the newspaper to have a small article on her so long as they went to her for information and not say, the internet. It was a bit of a risk but Nyrtiri figured that if she shot down the idea they would just want to know why more. To most teenagers, any good attention was the best kind of attention even if it meant including yourself in everyone's business. But any passing interest the students had for their new student faded when the article was released and they realized the pedestal they placed her on never existed because she was just like the rest of them with an ordinary typical life.

Then there was Lauren who was surprisingly hostile on first impressions but Nyrtiri startled her with a smile to her insults. _"Look everyone, it's Fork's latest shiny new toy," her voice couldn't have come off any more hostile but when Nyrtiri looked at her she was hit with the nostalgia of her best friend. It was obvious that she was talking about how many boys had invaded her personal space to get into her - to get to know her - and Nyrtiri wondered if Lauren wish they had switched places. "I assure you, the only toys I use are for a woman's pleasure," she whispered to Lauren as she passed and by the way the girl froze and shiver all at once made her wonder if it wasn't her but the boys she was envious of. _

Of course, that could just be her ego talking. The girl hadn't tried to call attention to herself or to 'Isa' after that because as Nyrtiri well knew, first impressions went a long way.

Lastly, there was Jessica who on a surface glance would seem a shallow stereotypical gossip mongrel but Nyrtiri liked her for the way she expressed what she was feeling without using words. A classic Slytherin; one who aims high and takes bias on a daily basis. She was loyal to no one but herself and Nyrtiri respected that attitude because it was a realistic one even if Nyrtiri rather have her heart broken a hundred times than to have felt no love or comfort as she had with Amelia. Besides, with Jessica she knew where she stood and that meant she didn't have to watch her back or her words around her.

She didn't consider them friends but they were good company and always had different things to talk about - and very quickly learned she didn't care for gossip but conspiracy theories and sarcastic responses were right up her alley. She didn't show how uncomfortable it was to walk in a school expecting discrimination whether verbally or just in looks because the majority of the student body were white kids. It was hard to remember she now had white skin and was therefore in a different category to the town's opinion but she knew that small towns weren't like the big cities and tried to not think about it too much.

Everything seemed like Forks would just be another ordinary town with a bunch of teenagers waiting to get out of town. Everything seemed like she had plenty of time to decide where she fit in the supernatural side of things. But that all came to a sudden halt at the end of the month when a new (and old) student showed up to school that everyone but her was familiar with.

A boy who they called Cullen.

Edward Cullen.


End file.
